A scary hairy tale

Once upon a time, there was a silly girl named Inihtar, who decided she wanted beautiful long black curly locks. But alas, her hair was straight as a broomstick's sweeper. So, she decided she would take herself off to a hair salon and get her hair permed, so she could achieve her heart's desire. All the warnings of well-wishers, who cautioned that her hair would be fried, and become dry as a desert bush, fell on deaf ears. For our friend Ini had made up her mind and there was no changing it. So off she went to the hair salon and, four hours later, walked out with the curls her heart had so desired.

Fast forward a couple of years: Ini's hair is a sight to behold: the top part is straight and fine; the bottom part, however, is a nightmare: dry, coarse, and split ends galore. So Ini decided she was going to chop off the remainder of the permed hair. And off she went to her favourite hair salon, where when the hair dresser held up the amount she wanted cut, Ini shook her head and said "more" and "more" and "more" again. So clip clip when the scissors, and when the cutting was all done, Ini realized in shock that her hair was half of its original length. She hid her shock, admitted that it didn't look too bad, and took herself off home.

A couple of days later, Ini decided she wanted layers. Her hair was shorter, and she figured this was the time to do it. So, unable to wait once her mind was made up, Ini went off to a nearby hair salon, and asked for layers. Clip clip went the scissors again, and Ini smiled, thanked the hair dresser, and went off home. On the way home, she peered at her reflection in shop windows, and in occasional mirrors, and realized that she wanted more layers in the front.

She decided to fix it herself. She arrived home, picked up a pair of scissors and a newspaper and headed for the bathroom. Snip snip went the scissors for a third time in a week. And the results this time were not so pleasing. Ini had overestimated her ability to fix her hair. Snip snip, went the scissors again, as she tried to make up for the disaster. To no avail.

"This is becoming like the tale of the monkey and the cake*," she told herself. She decided to leave it, pronounced her hair the latest fashion statement, put away her apparatus and went about her work. Ini might, of course, change her mind about the fashion statement, once she starts getting horrified stares, but she will just have to deal with it then, won't she?

*For those readers unfamiliar with the tale of the monkey and the cake, it goes something like this: Two birds had found a piece of cake and wanted to split it between them, but not trusting each other's ability to split it evenly, took it to a monkey to do it for them. The monkey broke the piece in two, then decided one was bigger than the other, and took a bite of the larger piece. Then that piece was smaller, so he took a bite of the other, and so on, until he had eated the entire piece.